Christian rock band at Crystal Springs Aug. 20

Published 10:03 pm Tuesday, July 27, 2010

 Described as Weird Al meets Billy Graham, Yankovic sent video greetings to the Pittsburgh rock band on its 15th anniversary. Singer and lyricist J. Jackson started parodying songs as a way to teach himself the Bible and to play the guitar.

Described as Weird Al meets Billy Graham, Yankovic sent video greetings to the Pittsburgh rock band on its 15th anniversary. Singer and lyricist J. Jackson started parodying songs as a way to teach himself the Bible and to play the guitar.

By JOHN EBY

Dowagiac Daily News

J. Jackson well knows the story of T. Jackson.

After all, the frontman and lyricist of the Christian parody band ApologetiX coming our way lives in Pittsburgh, where Niles’ Tommy James and the Shondells broke out to national success with “Hanky Panky.”

Jackson, the only remaining founding member from that first concert March 27, 1992, 1,255 shows ago, including 47 in lower Michigan and 53 in Indiana, but none in the Upper Peninsula, even worked his magic on “Mony Mony,” reworked as “Jonah, Jonah.”

He still marvels that James scored second-generation hits with Tiffany and Billy Idol.

He jokes that ApologetiX is like Spinal Tap when it comes to percussion, with enough former drummers to form their own credit union, although he and the bassist, Keith, have been together for 13 years.

“We like Michigan a whole lot,” Jackson said Tuesday afternoon in a phone interview to promote ApologetiX’s Aug. 20 appearance at 7:30 p.m. at 150-year-old Crystal Springs United Methodist Camp, 3774 Crystal Springs St., Dowagiac. Tickets cost $10 in advance,  $15 at the door.

“Despite how hard Michigan’s been hit by the economy, it’s been very supportive of us,” said Jackson, who played July 10 in Chesaning. “Michigan really does have good rock and roll fans.”

After 18 years and coming up on his 18th CD, Jackson’s band has played all 50 states.

Last year, the award-winning rock group played in more states than ever before in a single year — 40.

Its most recent CD, “The Boys Aren’t Backin’ Down,” came out in December 2009 containing 18 parodies.

Fall 2009 also saw the release of the CD “Recovery.” The 2010 tour features songs from both.

“ApologetiX is best described as ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic meets Billy Graham,” says Jackson, a 6-foot-6 singer and guitar player with blond hair.

“We appeal to both the Christian and secular audiences. I think we’re the only band that’s been featured on the radio shows of both Billy Graham and Howard Stern, not to mention ‘The 700 Club’ and ‘The Dr. Demento Show.’ ”

Conversing with Jackson is a bit like Dr. Demento given his encyclopedic knowledge of rock music and pop culture.

Yes, he met Weird Al once, and the accordionist’s drummer, Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, played seven tracks on an ApologetiX album. For the band’s 15th anniversary, they received a special video greeting from Yankovic.

ApologetiX’s repertoire runs the gamut of rock and roll from Elvis to today’s artists, including Michigan rapper Eminem, Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever” and Kid Rock, said to have enjoyed the spoof of “Cowboy.”

No word on how Marshall Mathers likes retooled versions of “Lose Yourself” or “Real Slim Shady,” but he has Jackson’s admiration.

“He’s one of the most clever rhymers I’ve ever heard. Parodying him takes longer. He’s tougher than The Beatles. With internal rhyming, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle with so many more pieces, 200 to 5,000. Eminem really lends himself to it because of the fact he’s so well known and such a stark contrast when you change controversial lyrics and make it say something different. That’s effective parody.”

Mentioning Flint’s Grand Funk Railroad, whose Mark Farner re-imagined some of the trio’s hits for an album of Christian tunes, elicits this response.

“I saw Mark Farner in 1988 (the same year Jackson became a born-again Christian) at a Christian music festival when he first started doing that and briefly spoke to him after the show,” Jackson says. “He was an unlikely candidate for change in life, I suppose, but then again, so was Saul of Tarsus … and Saint Augustine.”

Ironically, if you remember the raunchy 2 Live Crew (Luther Campbell vs. Acuff-Rose), the “Oh, Pretty Woman” fair use case “hit the Supreme Court and opened up doors for parodists like ourselves by declaring that a parody can be considered a fair use of an original, not requiring permission or royalties,” says Jackson, who grew up in Greensburg, Pa., cutting his satirical teeth on Mad magazine, novelty records and comic books.

The youngest of four, he was the only boy, which was like being an only child in a large family.

His mom and sisters loved Broadway shows. His dad had Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on reel-to-reel tape.

The first song he remembers is “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” by Petula Clark.

“I used to sing for other kids on the swing set, because I knew all the words to ‘Billy, Don’t Be a Hero’ by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, ‘The Night Chicago Died’ by Paper Lace and ‘Seasons in the Sun’ by Terry Jacks. I started actively listening to the radio and buying 45s in 1977,” he recalls.

“My first hand-me-down album was ‘More of the Monkees,’ which I cherished until one day I was balancing it on my head, and it fell off and cracked a chip off the first three tracks on either side. But I could still play ‘I’m a Believer’ and ‘I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone.’ My sister bought me my first brand-new album, ‘Venus and Mars’ by Wings because it had a song called ‘Magneto and Titanium Man’ on it and I collected comic books.

“The first album I can remember wanting was ‘The Beach Boys 20 Greatest Hits.’ Then at the end of 1977, I saw a TV tribute to the Beatles. I remember seeing Tony Randall sing ‘Honey Pie.’ Anyway, a month later, my friend Chris got ‘The Beatles 1967-’70’ for Christmas and there was no looking back after that. I couldn’t get enough Beatles music or information. From there it was a logical progression to the Stones, the Who, the Doors, Led Zep, etc.”

“I’m a Byrds fan, too,” said Jackson, informed that he follows to Dowagiac Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful and Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits.

ApologetiX parodied the Fab Four’s “Yesterday,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Back in the USSR,” among others, said Jackson, who is well-versed about 1978’s “The Rutles” and enjoyed George Martin’s “such a good job of blending” Beatles bits, turning the jukebox into a Cuisanart for “Love.”

Of his own zest for trivia, Jackson says, “One of the things that triggered that was in 1979 when I heard a radio program that played all of the number one hits of the rock era in chronological order. It took a whole weekend, and at the end of the show they played a medley of the songs in order. I ran and got a tape recorder and was able to record the medley from 1964 through 1978. I played it so often that I actually memorized the entire medley, which lasted about 20 minutes, without really even trying. I eventually learned all of the titles of the songs in the medley and the names of the artists who did them. I can still remember and sing the entire medley. It’s a great party trick.

“I’ve also read lots of rock and roll biographies and trivia books, and top 40 charts, etc. For some reason, the information sticks in my head.”

“I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church,” he says. “ went to Catholic grade school and high school, and I had religion classes every day. As a matter of fact, my great aunt was a nun, and she was especially fond of me — as I was of her — because I was born on the anniversary of her entering the convent. I remember my first communion, she gave me a condensed children’s Bible with really cool pictures in it, and I used to read it when I was in grade school. That was my first real exposure to the Bible. Then Sister Charlotte made us buy a Bible when we were freshmen in high school, and that was the first real Bible I ever really read — although not until almost 10 years after I bought it. She was a nun who definitely loved Jesus.”

They met Weird Al briefly after a concert in the summer of 1999.

He wears an ApologetiX shirt in the CD booklet for their “Biblical Graffiti” CD, released later that year.

“There were a lot of people waiting to talk to Al, and he didn’t have much time to talk,” J. says, “but he did say, ‘You guys do fabulous work.’ ”

As far as criteria goes, he says, an effective parody has to be a song “that a ton of people know. It can’t be obscure, no matter how great the original version was. The whole effectiveness of parody hinges on the audience’s familiarity with the original.

“We love songs that have been hits two or three times like ‘Smokin’ in the Boys Room’ by Brownsville Station in the ’70s and Motley Crue in the 1980s or, better yet, a recent hit that’s a remake of an oldie like when Pearl Jam re-did ‘Last Kiss.’ You do a parody of a song like that and multiple generations say, ‘They’re playing our song.’ ”

At home he spends time with his wife Lisa, an English major from Kentucky, and four girls, Janna, Heather, Kelly and Natalie and their menagerie of a dog, mice and fish.

Jackson had been a conventional bar band vocalist. When he became a Christian he rid himself of 2,000 records, tapes and compact discs, but as he immersed himself in Bible study, God steered him back into music.

Actually, he started writing parodies to teach himself the Bible and guitar.

“One of the toughtest things of being in a band is coming up with a name,” he said, of which the apex must have been APNAB (Absolutely Positively Not a Band).

ApologetiX is a variation on apologetics, which means defenders of the Christian faith.

In 2005, ApologetiX was named Favorite Indie Artist in the CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) Magazine Reader’s Choice Awards. Their online fan club boasts tens of thousands of members.

“We take our lead from the great theologian Mary Poppins,” the 10-year PR man says. “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. We take the Bible seriously. We just don’t take ourselves too seriously.”